Tales of love in and around my life, and a bit of the antics my dogs share with me. This should be fun!

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Controlling Fear

There are so many things in my head. So many different ways I want to go with this post.

Do I talk about control?Do I talk about my fears?

Do I talk about what I want to do?Do I talk about my accomplishments?Maybe I can talk about all of it...Control.This has so many aspects in my life. When the rest of my life is out of control, I rearrange the furniture in the house - because I have control over that. Where it comes to light in riding is with hills. This time however, in going down the hills. When I was young - I rode bikes with abandon. I don't recall having any fear of hills, up or down, at any point. I spent summers riding to and from my sister's house and the store. A ride fraught with hills - up and down - and curves and even some traffic issues - although a short cut through a trailer park allowed you to avoid the highway. I sped up and down those hills without a second thought. Even after I crashed and broke my clavicle, once healed, I continued up and down that road without a second thought - although I never again tried to ride down the massive hill and make a 90 degree turn without ever using my brakes. (For the record - I made the turn without issue. It was the hole in the road that caught my tire, stopping the bike and sending me flying that got me...) Now, a simple hill that I go down near my street causes me to brake like mad.So I don't lose control. I get images in my head of a small thing causing me to swerve and crash.Or a bump causing me to crash.Or a car causing me to crash.Or SOMETHING causing me to lose control. I don't like not being in control.My fears.Boy howdy have I developed a lot of fears. Maybe they were always there, but now circumstances and choices have forced me to face them frequently making them stand out in my mind.Fear of hills - this one I know is not new. It existed in my walking life and carried over to my riding life. Just when I think I have come close to conquering it... there's a new hill. Which leads me to my next one.Fear of new things. This feels like a new one to me. My very first ride I was petrified to go out the door. What if I fell? What if I got hit? What if I went X far and couldn't go any further?

As I continue to ride the route we developed by our house, I have grown comfortable and feel little issues with it now. We chose a new route last night for today and suddenly I found myself feeling that fear all over again. We had driven it. We drove portions of it a couple of times. It seemed good. It seemed workable.Then this morning, we got there. It was almost as if I was in a foreign country. It made me ride slower. It made me ride feeling rather miserable. I feel quite like I didn't have any business being out there riding. I couldn't lead. If I did, I didn't know where I was going or even if I could do it. On our second 'lap', when I did lead, by accident, I had a sudden panic and had no idea where we were. I thought I had missed a road or a turn or something and I was terror stricken. I had done none of those. I was in fact, on the road we were supposed to be on, going the direction we were supposed to go. Nevertheless, none of it looked familiar.What is so odd to me is that I love to explore new places. I love to drive down roads I have never been on... just to see what's there. I think the basis for this fear is knowing that getting down those roads is wholly dependent on my ability to do the riding.And this innate fear that I can't do it. What do I want to do?I want to ride without fear. Without the fear of losing control. Without the fear of the unknown. Without the fear of 'what if'. I want to learn to enjoy every aspect of the ride. The more I ride, I discover I am getting some of that. I ABSOLUTELY enjoy when my wife and I ride together. I also enjoy the alone time on the ride. I enjoy the other people who give you a nod (or a shake of their cane or two thumbs up) to let you know that they see you. That they see what you are doing. I want to change the voices in my head that very definitively hold me back. All of the people who have told me "change the tapes in your head" or some other version of that... I challenge you to look at yourself and tell me, honestly, that YOU have done that in your life. Tell me that you have changed the voices that tell you all the negative things about yourself - that tell you you aren't worth it, you are a sham, you aren't capable, you'll never be able to do it - tell me you've fixed it and you have gotten past them. I believe that some have. I believe it is possible. I have had 47 years or so of those tapes in my head. Those tapes were put there by so many others who held influence in my life, and reinforced and magnified, quite well, I might add, by me. I haven't found the "STOP" button yet. I also haven't found the "EJECT" button either. It's not a switch. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's not easy. I am beginning to feel that that's what's meant by "Do the thing you think you cannot do." (Thank you Eleanor Roosevelt). Even if you are afraid of it.Even if others say you can't do it.Even if it seems impossible.You must do the thing you think you cannot do.For each thing you do, it means you will be better able to do the next thing you think you cannot do.My accomplishments. I am riding consistently faster - I am consistently seeing 10+mph over the last little while. I am feeling a distinct difference on the hills I am riding up. I am trying to push myself more on those hills. I have ridden 99 miles over all.My number is 239.I think I am doing the thing I think I cannot do.